Through the Postcolonial Eyes: Images of Gender and Female Sexuality in Contemporary South Africa

Abstract

This article explores cultural representations of the lesbian in post-apartheid South Africa by focusing on images by the Black lesbian activist and photographer Zanele Muholi. In her work Muholi challenges visual regimes of sexuality and the body by pointing to practices and commodities that transgress normative perceptions of (hetero)sexuality. At the same time her images visualize the negotiations of local representations of female same-sex intimacies and sexual identities with global lesbian cultures and identities. By doing so they are targeting the assumption—and its effects—that homosexuality cannot act as a signifier for a decolonized subject.